International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Intercultural Communication (ICELAIC 2014)
Jingdezhen Export Ceramic Colored Drawing
Sculptures in Ming and Qing Dynasties
Haiying Liu
Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute
Jingdezhen, China
[email protected]
flowing streams, houses, and flying birds had a strong
dream-like appeal to Europeans. A greater number of earlier
Jingdezhen export ceramics were blue and white, partly
because blue and white ceramics were China's main products
at that time. That foreign trade was mainly a cramming
business was another reason. By the 23rd years of his reign,
Emperor Kangxi ended the Maritime Prohibition policy and
the number of foreign merchant ships began to increase. With
more and more adventurers travelling thousands of miles to
China, copies with European customs and manners were
brought to China for Chinese ceramic painters to copy.
Meanwhile, with the development of domestic decorative
ceramics, great quantities of ceramic painting artworks were
shipped to Europe[1].
Abstract—Chinese export porcelain research as early as the
tang dynasty, Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain and
youligong porcelain was favored by the people of Europe in
Yuan dynasty. Jingdezhen porcelain of Ming and qing dynasties
export sales reached its heyday. Jingdezhen in addition to export
ceramics for daily use, there are a large number of export
ceramic sculpture, Such as Chinese and foreign people, Buddha
statue, animal sculptures. These ceramic sculpture shape vivid,
lifelike and popular with westerners.
Keywords—Jingdezhen; Export Ceramics; Ceramic Sculpture;
Cultural Exchange
I. OVERVIEW OF JINGDEZHEN E XPORT CERAMICS IN MING
AND QING DYNASTIES
From Sui and Tang Dynasties way up to 19th century,
Chinese export ceramics enjoyed a booming period. During
Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jingdezhen export ceramics
achieved an unprecedented development, displaying both
same and different styles to domestic ceramics with regard to
patterning and shape changes. With rapid development of folk
kiln ceramics, royal kiln export was replaced by folk kiln
export, which greatly spurred the ceramic export, showing the
prosperity of foreign trade at that time. The ruling period of
Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Emperors of Qing Dynasty,
during which production and sales of export daily-use
ceramics and ceramic sculptures were prosperous, was the
real heyday for Jingdezhen ceramic art communication with
the outside world.
II. WIDE RANGE OF TOPICS OF EXPORT CERAMIC SCULPTURES
The export ceramic sculptures had a wide range of topics,
such as Buddha statues, figures of myths, historical stories,
fictions and dramas, civil and military officials of Qing
Dynasty, Western figures, folk life, and birds and beasts.
Moreover, sets or pairs of ceramic sculptures were very
popular, like the three gods of fortune, prosperity and
longevity, the Eight Immortals, the Eighteen Arhats, and pairs
of deer, elephants, lions, ducks, peacocks and parrots. Figure
sculptures of ceramic painting are especially noteworthy.
Apart from Chinese figures, there were also some Western
characters[2]. In the 18th century Chinese and Western
exchanges of art and culture, Western figures being the theme
of ceramic decoration became the epitome of Chinese and
Western fusion. From the tranquil and elegant blue and white
to the gorgeous and colorful painted, the special decoration
topic of Western figures represents a diversified art form
originating from Chinese and Western fusion in a specified
cultural background. It is interesting that most of the Western
characters in the ceramic sculptures, though in western clothes
with blonde hair and white faces, demonstrate typical Chinese
facial features, without any trace of Western features like long
noses and deep eyes. It is probably because few Chinese
ceramic painters had ever even a chance to see Westerners
and learn about human anatomy and Western art techniques.
As a result, most of Western figures in the 18th century
ceramics have more or less an imprint of traditional Chinese
art expression. Sculptures of Europeans in French
As we know, since the ancient times there had been three
kinds of export ceramics for foreign exchange and trade: first,
as rewards or gifts given to foreign diplomats or heads of state;
second, land and sea route exports; third, ordered directly by
foreign traders and sold to foreign countries. Among those
ordered by foreign traders, many ornamentations and patterns
were carefully copied by Chinese ceramic painters according
to prototypes brought by foreign traders from Europe.
During Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jingdezhen export
ceramics mainly were the second and the third kinds. At that
time, the books written by Marco Polo was the only source
that Europeans could depend on to learn about China, the
sacred oriental country abounded with beautiful ceramics like
jade. Thus China was admired by the relatively backward
Europeans. The willow depicted in the blue and white patterns,
and landscapes with Chinese characteristics like small bridges,
© 2014. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press
562
Clothes collected by Victoria and Albert Museum are
III. EXPORT CERAMIC COLORED DRAWING SCULPTURES IS
COLORFUL
exemplars of such kind, as shown in “Fig.1”.
The export painting ceramics of Jingdezhen in Ming and
Qing Dynasties were made mainly in folk kilns[3-4]. Since
the Chenghua period in Ming Dynasty, according to historical
records, with the development of Guangdong's seaports for
foreign trade, Guangdong ceramic traders had continued to
bring foreign traders to Jingdezhen to purchase painting
ceramics and sell them to Europe. The ceramic glaze
of Goose-like Tureen crafted in Jingdezhen of Qing Dynasty
and now collected by the British Museum, portraits a gray
goose of yellow beak crouching on its yellow flippers, with
eyes bulging and curving neck lifting up, as shown in “Fig.2”.
This artwork allocates with ingenuity the lower part of the
goose as the tureen's main body, the upper part as the lid, and
the goose head as the lid handle. Showcasing a unique shape
and rich colors, the tureen wears a vivid and spellbinding
sense. Jingdezhen ceramic artists created such a beautiful
artwork with inspiration from a common subject in life, fully
demonstrating their superb skill and great imagination. It is
not surprising that Europeans cherished such elegant ceramics
so much. At that time in Europe, it was impossible for
common people to possess such a treasure. Only kings and
aristocrats could own and show off Jingdezhen ceramics as a
symbol of wealth.
Fig.1. Sculptures of Europeans in French Clothes
Fig.2. Goose-like Tureen
IV. SKILLFUL TECHNIQUES FOR E XPORT CERAMIC SCULPTURES
Ceramic sculptures are made by high temperature baking
after a technical process consisting of pressing back, inlaying,
engraving, stacking, molding, and carving. According to
different techniques, ceramic sculptures could be classified as
round sculpture, raised sculpture, hollowed sculpture, relief
sculpture, embedded sculpture and engraved sculpture. Dating
back to Tang Dynasty, Jingdezhen ceramic sculptures had
developed with highly sophisticated techniques within a few
centuries. Export ceramics were mainly various household
items and small sculptures. Sculptures of goddess Guanyin,
Dharma, lions were especially popular at that time in the West.
And the shapes of export ceramics and domestic ones were
also different, such as western styled hand-washing bottles,
gallipots, ewers, and milk cups. Another example is The Blue
and White Coffee Pot with Mythological Scenes (collected by
the Victoria and Albert Museum), as shown in “Fig.3”. This
coffee pot boasts a unique sexangular shape, with a taper body
and a long water pipe ended with a curved spout. The body
and the water pipe are joined by an “S” connection. On the
bottom of the pot are three ball-shaped supports and on top of
the lid sits a small lion sculpture of traditional Chinese style.
The lower part of its body depicts hunting scenes, while the
upper part displays exquisite ribbons with mythological
figures in the special “decoration window”. Mythological
scenes in the medal-like drawing on the pot wall represent
Europe and bull. The shape and structure of this one of a kind
sexangular coffee pot, as well as the decoration of hunting
scenes and mythological figures all came from Europe. Its
flowing lines and shaping together with a combination of
sculpture techniques, makes the coffee pot a fabulous
masterpiece.
Fig.3. The Blue and White Coffee Pot with Mythological Scenes
563
[4]
V. EXPORT CERAMIC SCULPTURES OF REMARKABLE CHINESE
AND WESTERN FUSION
During Ming and Qing Dynasties, great quantities of
ceramics and ceramic sculptures were sold to Europe. At that
time, many topics and shapes of these ceramics were designed
according to patterns brought by European traders.
European-styled tableware, sculptures, and tea wares were the
common types of export ceramics then. These ceramics are so
common in today's Europe that people hardly believe that they
are antiquity ceramics coming from China[5].
[5]
It is at this time when western culture made a major
influence on export ceramics. Many new European household
articles were brought to the East by western traders and
copied by ceramic craftsmen in Jingdezhen. In 1989, a
Chinese shipwreck of Kangxi period was discovered in Vung
Tau, Vietnam. The ship was loaded with quite a lot of
ceramics of western style, such as lidded goblets, stem-dishes,
long covered jars, lidded teacups, lidded high cups,
hand-washing bottles, bottle gourds of various
shapes, various oddly shaped vases with or without covers,
various mustard pots with handles, big lidded teacups with
handles, lidded kettles, small girdling spice cups, small round
medicine boxes, lidded goddess Guanyin bottles, and various
oddly shaped flower vases. Ceramics of this period also
include soup pots, sputum cups, water jars, milk jars,
candlesticks, fruit baskets, leak basins, and salad bowls.
The shapes of traditional Chinese ceramics were usually
changed to cater to European flavors. Take flower vases of
Kangxi period for example, there were shapes that met
western aesthetic ideas, like flower vases and lidded Guanyin
bottles, which Europeans usually placed on mantelpieces of
their living rooms as decoration. As Europeans at that time
preferred big sized ceramics, a great number of this kind were
made for Europe. A five-colored one-meter-high flower vase
of Kangxi period is now standing in France's Palace of
Versailles. Such big sized ceramics, very rare for the then
domestic market, should have been specially baked to meet
European aesthetic standards.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research leading to these results has received the
support of Social science research "twelfth five-year" plan
project of Jiangxi Province “During the Ming and Qing
dynasties Jingdezhen Export Porcelain Art Style Research”
(NO. 12YS04) and “Study of Jingdezhen Ceramic Colored
Drawing Sculpture Art” (NO. 11YS04).
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